Yu Heng Lau
@yuhenglau.bsky.social
Associate Professor, Chemical and Synthetic Biology | The University of Sydney | Protein Engineering, Capsid Assembly, Med Chem, Peptides | http://LauGroup.net
Nature has a trick to evolve multimeric proteins via gene duplication. 🧬One copy compensates, the other explores.🧬 Although this has only been a theory so far. Until now: Directed evolution of multimeric proteins by dual-compensatory gene duplication. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
1/Delighted to be part of a team from @cmri.bsky.social, @sydney.edu.au, the University of Wollongong, and SVI (Melbourne) awarded a $5M NHMRC Synergy Grant to explore: “A mechanistic approach to developing precision therapies for ALT-dependent cancers.” www.nhmrc.gov.au/funding/find...
We are hiring! Our lab in Sydney is looking for a postdoc with cyano experience to drive our SynBio project on carbon fixation in encapsulin protein cages.🦠 ➡️ 🌻 This project follows our recent work in Nature Communications: lnkd.in/g-rYrg93 Full details: lnkd.in/gRJv4RGs @arccoesb.bsky.social
Finally! We have a FANCM:RMI inhibitor that is cell active and specifically kills ALT+ cancer cells 🎯 @yuhenglau.bsky.social + my labs just published the first cell-active peptide inhibitors of this critical target in 10-15% of cancers. doi.org/10.1021/acs....
Reprogramming encapsulins into modular carbon-fixing nanocompartments @natcomms.nature.com by @taylorszyszka.bsky.social et al from @yuhenglau.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Led by @taylorszyszka.bsky.social + Dav, the first part of a big effort to make simple CO2-fixing cages is out @natcomms.nature.com 🦠➡️🌻 Encapsulation is one step towards keeping Rubisco focused on its very important job... Paper: doi.org/10.1038/s414... Conversation article: doi.org/10.64628/AA.n5
Centre researchers have created tiny compartments to help supercharge photosynthesis, potentially boosting wheat and rice yields while slashing water and nitrogen use. 🌾⬆️ Read the story: www.coesb.com.au/superchargin... 📷: Davin S Wijaya at ANU @taylorszyszka.bsky.social
Supercharging photosynthesis in crops - ARC Centre of Excellence in Synthetic Biology
Australian researchers have created tiny compartments to help supercharge photosynthesis, potentially boosting wheat and rice yields while slashing water and nitrogen use. Researchers from Associate ...
coesb.com.au
Better photosynthesis could boost crop yields by up to 60% – and a tiny box made of proteins could help.
Engineering crops to photosynthesise better just got one step closer to reality
theconversation.com
💥🛟Wow cyclic peptides are cool! So excited to share a new publication on "Potent Cyclic Peptide Inhibitors Disrupt the FANCM–RMI Interaction". Work led by @yuhenglau.bsky.social to which we contributed structures and ideas. The top hits mimic native MM2...but in reverse! pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...
Potent Cyclic Peptide Inhibitors Disrupt the FANCM–RMI Interaction
FANCM–RMI is a protein–protein interaction that maintains genome stability during DNA repair events in cancers that rely on the Alternative Lengthening of Telomeres (ALT) pathway for survival. We repo...
pubs.acs.org
Our paper on in vitro assembly and packaging of encapsulin protein cages is now accepted in @angewandtechemie.bsky.social 🥳 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... Congrats @taylorszyszka.bsky.social for leading the charge, along with all our team members and collaborators
Yu Heng Lau@yuhenglau.bsky.social · 2y agoLong time lurker, first time poster... announcing our latest preprint on encapsulin protein cages! We can now assemble them beautifully in vitro, without the ugly defects you get using acid/base or denaturants. This lets us put any synthetic cargo into these cages. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
We're hiring!🚨Our lab is looking for two new postdocs for our drug discovery program: 1) Synthetic/Med Chem (small molecule hit-to-lead)🧪 usyd.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/USYD_E... 2) Chemical Biology (peptide inhibitors)🦠 usyd.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/USYD_E... Pls spread the word!🙏
🎉👏 Congratulations to Associate Investigator, A/Prof Yu Heng Lau @yuhenglau.bsky.social from our #USyd node on receiving an #NHMRC Investigator Grant! He has been awarded $1.6 million for his project "Developing targeted therapies for gliomas by peptide-assisted fragment optimisation." 🧠💊
Maybe with all that is going on in the states no one noticed, but in the Netherlands the university of Twente has fired 46 people from the chem department. One of them is Jeroen Cornelissen. A giant in the field #chemsky www.utoday.nl/news/75215/p...
Professor Jeroen Cornelissen: 'It could have been more humane'
Professor Jeroen Cornelissen was employed by the UT for no less than 16 years. Until last Monday. His entire department will disappear as of 1 June. His particular concern: what about the students and...
utoday.nl
Light-ning Talks #LorneProteins2025 Taylor Szyszka Engineering carbon-fixing protein cages. Carboxysomes are great, but encapsulins can assemble a uniform cage around any target tagged with a cargo peptide at C term. 42 nm across. Carboxysome mimic with encapsulin? Encapsulating rubisco.
Amazing work from Farren Isaacs team at Yale - reducing E.coli's genetic code down to only using a single stop codon. A 62 codon GRO with lots of potential for applications. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Engineering a genomically recoded organism with one stop codon - Nature
Ochre, a strain of Escherichia coli engineered to have a single stop codon, enables reassignment of four codons for non-degenerate functions, such as incorporation of non-standard amino acids into pro...
nature.com
We have PhD scholarships @sydneyuni.bsky.social School of Chemistry available to work on a range of drug discovery and chemical biology projects in my lab, applications close Feb 21 Please let any potentially interested candidates know! www.sydney.edu.au/scholarships...
Postgraduate Research Scholarship in Medicinal Chemistry
sydney.edu.au
Big crowd to see Prof Sir Shankar Balasubramanian give the 2025 Cornforth Lecture @sydneyuni.bsky.social School of Chemistry. Very happy for all the students who have seen his science in my undergraduate lectures... They finally get to see him now in action for real! 🧬
The Physical Virology meeting is back! now under the EMBO|FEBS umbrella. Very excited to go, happy to be part of it. meetings.embo.org/event/25-phy...
Physical Virology: across length scales
Our preparedness against viral diseases and our ability to exploit viral structures to advance technology, both require multidisciplinary collaborations. In this context, physics-oriented approaches …
meetings.embo.org
Three more days left for Early Bird Registration for the Lorne Protein Conference 2025! www.lorneproteins.org
Had such a wonderful time at #Coesb2024! Got to meet like minded synthetic biologists and learn about their successes and challenges. And huge thanks to @ARC_CoESB for an award for Outreach Excellence!
Shouting out some super cool work by my good friend and Chemistry colleague Shelley Wickham and her amazing team @sydneyuni.bsky.social #chemsky DNA origami voxels configured into anything 🦕🇦🇺 you name it, even 3D or dynamic, they'll build it Out in Science Robotics www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Reconfigurable nanomaterials folded from multicomponent chains of DNA origami voxels
Custom nanostructures joined into flexible chains rapidly transform into programmable nanorobotic components with high yield.
science.org
My first ever Bluesky post is a new #preprint alert! What if we could put *anything* into a protein cage? Our new in vitro encapsulin assembly system is esay to use and enables the pacakging of protein and synthetic cargo! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
High-fidelity in vitro packaging of diverse synthetic cargo into encapsulin protein cages
Cargo-filled protein cages are powerful tools in biotechnology with demonstrated potential as catalytic nanoreactors and vehicles for targeted drug delivery. While endogenous biomolecules can be packa...
biorxiv.org
As Lorne Protein Meeting approaches its 50th anniversary we’re excited to welcome the fantastic speakers coming in 2025 to celebrate. www.lorneproteins.org/speakers2025
Invited Speakers — Lorne Proteins 2025
lorneproteins.org
Very excited to share our new pre-print! We’ve developed a new way to put any type of cargo (biological or synthetic) into protein cages! All in-vitro! This enables massively scalable in vitro packaging technology for multiple lucrative applications. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
High-fidelity in vitro packaging of diverse synthetic cargo into encapsulin protein cages
Cargo-filled protein cages are powerful tools in biotechnology with demonstrated potential as catalytic nanoreactors and vehicles for targeted drug delivery. While endogenous biomolecules can be packa...
biorxiv.org
Long time lurker, first time poster... announcing our latest preprint on encapsulin protein cages! We can now assemble them beautifully in vitro, without the ugly defects you get using acid/base or denaturants. This lets us put any synthetic cargo into these cages. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
biorxiv.org
